F 
/2, 



7 



slf3y 






'S.K.B.lTOB'rH. 



ADDRESSES 



BEFORE THE 




OUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



( 1881-1882) 



BY CHARLES HAWLEY, D. D. 



OF AUBURN, N. Y. 



FOURTH AND FIFTH 



ANNUAL ADDRESSES 



1881 AND 1882 



BEFORE THE 



Cayuga Co. Historical Society 

BV CHARLES I^AWI.EY, D. I). 

President pf the Society. 



Reprinted from Collections of C. C. II. S., No. 2. 



AUBURN, N. Y 
I 882. 






KNAPP & PECK, 
Book, Job and Commercial Piintersr 

Auburn, N. Y. 



BY rPf«VSPER. 

JUN 3 1910 






<i 



<-< 



FOURTfl ANNUAL ADDRESS 



^ BY THE PRESIDENT. 



February /TH, 1881, 



ADDEESS 



It is to History, in regard to dignity and authority, that Lord 
Bacon assigns the pre-eminent place among human writings. 
" For, to its fidelity are intrusted the examples of our ances- 
tors ; the vicissitudes of things ; the foundations of civil pol- 
icy and the name and reputation of men." "But," he adds, 
" the difficulty is no less than the dignity. For to carry the 
mind in writing into the past and bring it into sympathy 
with antiquity ; diligently to examine ; freely and faithfully 
to report, and by the light of words to place, as it were, be- 
fore the eyes, the revolutions of time ; the chai-acters of per- 
sons ; the courses and currents of actions, is a task of great 
labor and judgment rather because in ancient transactions 
the truth is difficult to ascertain, and in modern, it is danger- 
ous to tell." 

All that is here said of the dignity and difficulty attend- 
ing historical memoirs, applies with force to the purposes of 
our organization ; for it is only as local history is ample 
and accurate that the material exists, to give general history 
either dignity or value. It is, moreover, no easy task, as I 
hardly need remind you, to keep up a vigorous historical so- 
ciety, especially in a community so youthful, comparatively, 
as our own — not yet having completed its first century. We 
may have been too busy making, history to think much of 
collecting its annals, and too near, perhaps, the generation 
that opened -for us through the wilderness the path of civili- 
zation, fully to appreciate their work. 



6 FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

At the best, however, we can hardly expect any thing- 
like popular enthusiasm in the slow and patient endeavor to 
garner the materials of history. We must still be content 
with the active enlistment of the comparatively few, whose 
tastes lead them in this direction, or who place some proper 
estimate upon the future value of such labors. The number 
possessed with the true historic spirit, is sm;ill, and they are 
fewer still 'A^ho have both the inclination and the means, 
with the leisure, to gratify it. I do not know that we have 
even one among our forty or fifty members, who ranks as an 
entliuslast in such matters ; while it is not too much to say 
that the body of our membership is in hearty and growing- 
sympathy with the objects which the Society has in charge. 
With our present numbers we have been able thus far, to 
maintain a healthy organization, and have much to show for 
our laborvS. But in the growing demands of the work, we 
would be much encouraged and helped by larger co-operation 
on the part of our citizens, who have with us a common in- 
terest in what we aim to accomplish. We need, perhaps, 
to be less modest in urging our claims as a Society upon the 
public favor, and more diligent in personal solicitation, to 
increase our membership. These claims are easily recog- 
nized. The work entrusted to the Society must commend 
itself to every intelligent citizen throughout the County. 
Whatever is valuable in our various enterprises, religious, 
social or industrial, and whatever of benefit has accrued from 
them, it is the province of this Society to rescue from obliv- 
ion, and embalm in the memories and gratitude of men. 
What has thus been worth doing, is worth}^ such preserva- 
tion, and what was not so well worth doing— all of fact and inci- 
dent which reveal the weaker side of human nature and even 
the worst side of human life^ — alike serves the purposes of im- 
partial history. There may be wisdom as well as warning 
to be gathered from the errors and mistakes of those who 



FOIIRTPI ANNUAL ADDRESS. 7 

have preceded us. History is a good tonic for that morbid 
despondency which despairs of the times and laments the 
"good ohl (hiys," never to return. Its atmosphere is healthy 
and bracing; and though it disrobe the past of the enchant- 
ment which distance of time no less than of space, lends to 
the view, it serves also to present the real and the true in 
forms most instructive and striking. It is this large teaching 
of human experience gathered from the wi<lest fields of hu- 
man action, that is the province of history ; and he who 
studies its lessons most devoutly, is best furnished to act well 
his part in all that concerns present duty. 

As for our own immediate field of in(piir3^ as a Society, 
the more we work it, the richer we find it in historic wealth. 
By means of researches made within the last three or four 
years, and mainly under the auspices of the Society, we have 
come into larger knowledge of the people who held this 
ground for centuries preceding its settlement by the white 
man, and have traced the presence among them of the first 
Europeans who ever trod this soil ; the object and various 
motives which impelled the adventurers, their heroism and 
their failure, and have become familiar with some of the 
scenes of one of the gi-eat dramas of history, enacted within 
the limits of our own county, along its lakes, which are still 
the pride and beauty of the region, and hy the very stream 
that flows through and has created our cit^^ whose banks 
resound with the industries wliich have rendered Auburn 
famous in distant parts of the woi'ld, for invention and intelli- 
gent enterprise. 

It would ap})ear, at first thought, that the early settlement 
of a region like this could liave had little in common with 
its present condition. We look back almost a hundred 
years, since a new civilization took possession of this terri- 
tory. The aboriginal race had hardly been dispossessed of the 
soil, when single families without concert, only a common 



8 FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

impulse uo belter their condition, began to find their way 
thither from the Eastern States and the Eastern portion of 
this State ; and vsoon neighborhoods are formed and com- 
pacted, followed by villages as centers of trade and the arts 
of life ; and these, where fortunately located with facilities for 
growtli, becoming prosperous cities, until the whole scene 
changes from semi-barbarous life to cultured and progressive 
society. 

The difference in some aspects is great. There is an 
indescribable fascination at this distance^ of time in the story 
of pioneer life, often as it may be rehearsed. Its dangers, 
privations and hardships over against the security and 
comfort and plenty in which we dwell, invest it with a 
romantic, often heroic interest. The contrast it presents to 
all modern improvement in the face of the country ; in 
dwellings, churches, public buildings, stores, manufactories 
and whole social and industi'ial economy, is very wide. But 
in all that makes up the ground work of life, they stood on 
the same footing on which we stand to-day. They were as 
liapp}', as contented, and as successful, in their straitened con- 
ditions, as are the people who succeed them. That they were 
wiser oi- more virtuous, is not to be claimed. The vague 
impression sometimes cherished of the superior goodness of a 
past generation, is one which a closer knowledge often dissi- 
pates, and we learn that human nature retains its character- 
istics amid all external chan&;es. The more we know of what 
has been, the more pertinent the advice of th^ wise man : "Say 
not then, what is the cause that the former days are better than 
these; for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this." The 
people of former days lived and acted in their circumstances, 
very much like the })eople of the present day. If they appear 
to have practiced the more homely and frugal virtues to our 
disparagement, I am disposed to think it was from necessity 
rather than choice. They were as extravagant in all direc- 



FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 9 

tions as their means would permit. Tliey songlit pleasure 
and personal gratification by the methods open to them. 
They were no more temperate or sell-denying, no more strict 
in their morals or piety than the same classes of persons now. 
They were open to aspersions among themselves for their pride 
and ostentation and factitious social distinctions, quite like 
those to which we are accustomed. 

A curious instance of this I find in a pamphlet which 
recently fell into my hands, printed by an indignant citizen 
of Auburn in the year 1828, some fifty-three years ago. It 
is a vigorons protest at what the writer deemed a most unjust 
abridgement of the liberty of speech, because he was not 
permitted on occasions of public worship, to ventilate some 
ver}^ sincere though singular opinions. After repeated 
attempts at such interruption of religious service, from which 
he could not be persuaded to desist, he was arrested and 
convicted in a civil court, though for prudential reasons the 
penalty for the offence was not exacted. In his appeal to 
the public against the rank injustice, he is very severe upon 
both the churches and ministers for their gross departure 
from the simplicity of Gospel truth and Christian life, — 
notably St. Peter's, then under the rectorship of the gentle 
and scholarly Dr. Rudd, and the First Presbyterian still 
favpred with the pastorate of the fervid and eloquent Dr. 
Lansing. He arraigns these two congregations, before the bar 
of public opinion on several distinct charges ; but what is 
particularlv noticeable is the onslaught he makes upon their 
" pompous, costly and gorgeous church edifices ; furnished 
with luxurious and unseemly extravagance, shutting out 
the poor, and even driving them into dissipation and infi- 
delity ;" and last of all upon the profan(!^ntrusion of choir 
singing in divine worship with tunes more fitting the stage 
than the house of God. Indeed, thought I, while reading 
these things, and more of the same sort, are these the good 



10 FOURTH ANNLTAL ADDRESS. 

old da3^s of pious simplicity T have heard so much about, and 
from which we have so far degenerated? It sounded so much 
like an echo of the talk of to-day, that I confess it was some 
relief to know that church extravagance with fashionable, 
operatic church music, did not originate with this wayward 
generation, but belonged likewise to those gracious times ! 

In truth, all these things are to be judged relatively to 
time and circumstance, while a just comparison drawn 
between the Auburn of 1828 and the Auburn of 1881, 
would not only show what is so patent to all, this increase 
of material prosperity, but reveal at the same time a substan- 
tial improvement even in those aspects in which modern 
society is thought to be most open to criticism. 

I met, only the other day, with a^n article in an English 
review, which illustrates in this precise way, social progress 
in this country. The writer is an American who has spent 
the large part of his life abroad, and on revisiting his native 
New England village, compares its present condition with 
his memories of it fifty 3^ears ago. He reproduces with a 
picturesque vividness, the quaint little town, built on two 
streets which crossed at right angles, giving it the name of 
" The Four Corners," with its rival church edifices, two in 
number, and both innocent of comfort, much less of luxury ; 
its small one story district school house, and more statel}' 
academy ; its ugly, yellow-painted town house, where all 
matters of local government and general politics were dis- 
cussed and settled, and its taverns and miscellaneous stores, 
where citizens commonl)^ spent their evenings to talk and 
drink over the events of the day. Drinking was universal, 
and liquor selling the most profitable branch of business. 
Nothing could l^ft done withont the aid of rum, not even the 
holding of an ecclesiastical conference as the old account 
books show, without a Dlentiful supply. The annual militia 
muster which combined the pomp of war with the gaiety of a 



FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 11 

liolida}^, was the principal aniusoineiit. The people lived 
very plainly ; wei-e iiubistrious and frugal if not tenri{)erate, 
while there wa.s an educated class, who would have done 
honor to the most cultivated society of the time. 

This was the village as pictured in the memory of the 
non-resident American, who returns a half a centur}' later, 
to find it a thi-iving railway centre, its streets adorned with 
choice shade trees and lighted with gas ; its dwellings and 
public buildings greatly improved in comfort and architec- 
ture, with no signs of jK^vert}', but api)arent thrift every 
where and comparative luxury. There was not a liquor 
shojD in the town, but instead a savings bank, a free public 
library, several literary societies, with stated courses of pop 
ular and scientific lectures. Religion and culture had kept 
pace with material progi'ess and the change from lifty years 
before, was as striking as it is suggestive. 

But what makes the testimon}^ of this writer the more 
interesting is. that to him, his native village was onh^ an 
illustration of similar changes which met him ever}^ where, 
indicating the social progress of the country within that 
period, the exceptional instances being largely due to foreign 
ideas, customs and influences, the tendency of which is to 
bring down the general standing of intelligence and morals. 

The value of our historical literature, as I have said, 
depends on its fidelity to truth. The nan-ative may be 
colored by prejudice, without violence to the facts. The 
coloring will be easily detected ; and the philosophy can be 
separated horn the substance of the history. I know of 
nothing more readable or trustworthy in natural history 
than the facts which Mr. Darwin has gathered and arrange<l 
out of the life and habit of tlie whole animal kingdom to 
sustain his peculiar theory of evolution. But though I con- 
fide in the candor and fidelity to existing facts, characteristic 
of that eminent naturalist, must I therefore accept his theory 



12 FOUETH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

of the origin of man ? We know beforehand that it is not 
the matter-of-fact world, whitlier the novelist or the drama- 
tist would take us as we surrender to the fascination ; but an 
ideal world into which his imagination transports, us and we 
enjoy the excursion the more for that very reason. History 
is separated from Eomance by sharp and rigid lines ; and 
these are becoming more and more distinct. The ready 
belief once accorded to whatever assumed the dignity of 
historical narrative, has passed away. Much of the earlier 
Grecian and Roman history proves to be legendary and fab- 
ulous. It is not very long since the story of Romulus was 
scarcely less questioned in our schools, than the landing of 
the Pilgrims at Plymouth, or the Declaration of Indepen 
dence. All ancient historical writers once stood upon the 
same footing and were regarded as equally credible. All 
parts of the same author were supposed to rest upon the 
same authority. A blind, indiscriminate faith, — acquies- 
cence rather than belief — embraced equally and impartially 
the whole range of ancient story, setting aside perhaps those 
prodigies which passed for embellishment to relieve the 
otherwise tedious narrative. 

But all this is changed. The present century, if it did not 
give birth to, has largely developed, a new science, the 
science of historical criticism which has revolutionized the 
study and whole groundwork of history. It has reversed at 
many points the views once held of the nations and races of the 
ancient world. A new antiquity may be said to have been 
reared out of the old ; and while very much that was unreal 
has vanished at the touch of the critic's wand, a fresh revela- 
tion has taken its place. I would not say that the destructive 
criticism which has made havoc with long accepted beliefs, 
has not erred on that side. The tendency, as is quite natu- 
ral, has doubtless been to the extreme, where there was so 
mu^h rubbish to be cleared away. But this is a tendency 



FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 18 

whit'li takes care of itself in the long run : and the new 
fabric with fairer propi^rtions and tii'iiier foundations is sure 
to rise out of the fratrnients of discarded systems vvlietiicr of 
philoso];)hy or fact. 

The spirit of ci'itical ii;([uirv. lio\v(^ver, is just now most 
active in arcliccologii-al research, involving the distribution 
of races over the globe, relative priority of occupation and 
so the antiipiity and origin of man. On such a broad and 
obscure Held of investigation, and entered upon so recently, 
we must wait with patience for definite reh,ults. Some start- 
ling opinions have fiom time to time been given out with 
no little assurance, which later developments have shown 
were hasty if not groundless. Nothing has as yet been 
brought to light which justilies the belief that man existed 
prior to the human period as defined in the first chapters of 
Genesis, confessedly the most ancient writing in the world, and 
which as Bunsen says, has no appearance of exaggerating 
its own antiquity. Assuming that it gives the true origin 
of man, there was no need of interminable ages for his devel- 
op)ment ; and the children of the men who built the ark and 
the tower of Babel could build Thebes, Memphis, and the Pyr- 
amids, within the time which the received chronology allows 
between the flood and the era of these monuments. As 
early in the book of Genesis as the fourth chapter, mention 
is made of the invention of instruments of music, of artificers 
in brass and iron, and certairdy such a structure as the Ark 
is described to have been, implies an advanced state of the 
mechanical arts. The immediate descendents of Noah, built 
cities and founded mighty empires. The men of Shinar 
knew how to buikl stupendous fabrics of V)rick and mortar. 
If then we receive this Book of Genesis as a true though 
concise history of the antediluvian world, we have the data 
to account for the early development of human art, without 
recourse to undefined and fabulous ages in which man crept 



14 FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

from kiashi[) with the brute, to dominion over the earth. 
The theory^ that tlie human race began its existence at the 
lowest stage of barbarism, is neither demanded nor warranted 
by any known facts. On the otiier hand, the evidence is, 
that barbarism, wherever found, is a decline from a previous 
state of civilizaticm. 

The most remote races whose histoiy can only be gathered 
from their graves, their habitations and implements, by no 
means indicate primitive man to have been the rude creature 
some would make him. The pre-historic men, of whom we 
know any thing, appear to have been the superiors in physi- 
cal structure, an<l mental power, if the skull is any measure 
of comparison, and in the arts of life, to some later peoples, 
wliose histoi'v is known. The oldest human skulls as yet 
found are among the largest, and indicate if not a highly 
cultivated, certainly a powerful race of men, confirming the 
earliest scripture records that there were giants in those 
days; -and may, for all evidence to the contrary, belong to 
no older period than the antediluvian times when ''the 
wickedness of man was exceeding great upon the earth." All 
this is against the idea of a progressive development of man 
from an inferior origin. 

It would appear, moreover, that the same general features 
belong to this pre-historic civilization, wherever it is traced 
in any part of the world. Similar implements, weapons 
and utensils of the same materials and general style of man- 
ufacture, indicate its general supremacy. In modes of arch- 
itecture for dwellings and for military defence, the differences 
are no greater than those which now belong, in the same 
regard, to essentially the same grades of civilized life. The 
men of the Stone Age, who occupied the old world and 
passed away before the dawn of history, were very like the 
people in possession of this continent when first discovered 



FOUHTII ANNUAL ADDRESS. 15 

by the Europeans.' Tlie same fonn of the (liiit^arrow, the 
same style of stone hatchet found in the graves of the 
unknown warriors of the pre-historie raee that occupied 
Britian and France, were the wea[)ons in use by the North 
American Indian when tii-st known to the white man; while 
in the then unexplored mounds of the lower Mississippi and 
the valley of the Ohio, extending into parts of Western New 
York, lay concealed the relics of a people who had preceded 
the tribes then in possession of the New Woi-ld. These 
ancient mounds have since yieldfil some of their tivasures to 
the archifiologist, leaving little doubt of the close affinity 
between those who built them in [ihysical character, in tlieir 
habits, social institutions and religious beliefs with the pre- 
historic men of the old world. They worked not oidy in 
stone an<l clay but also in copper and silver, as seen from 
their implements, utensils and ornaments. They were ac- 
quainted with the rich mineral deposites along the banks of 
Lake Superior as attested by ancient excavations in which 
ai'e found the stone mauls and picks and decayed wooden 
shovels of these ancient miners. They were not only tillers 
of the soil, but give ])roof of ai'tistic skill as weavers, potters, 
and to some extent workei's in metals, while the monuments 
they have left behind indicate industry and power. In no 
respect, however, do they seem to have been the superior of 
the })e.oples who succeeded them, in their weapons, or many 
of their implements, though doubtless the ruder forms 
of these may have survived, while the more skillful and del- 
icate products mav have mouldered and perished. Their 
mound-village sites, from which their habitations and 
defences have disappeared, with their sacrificial burial places, 
sufficiently distinguish them fi'om the roving and unsettled 

1 See " Foseil Men and their Modern RepresentativeB," in which Ihc author, Prin- 
cipal Dawsion, of the McGill University, has done most excellent service in employing 
existing information as to Americ;in Races, " to illustrate and explain conditions long 
since passed away in the Eastern Continent." 



16 FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

tribes who disputed with them their ancient possessions. Dr. 
Wilson in his " Pre-historic Man " gives an illustration of an 
ancient burial place discovered near Brockville, C. " Here 
were l)uried about fourteen feet below the surface, twenty 
skeletons, arranged in a circle with their feet toward the 
centre. Some of the skeletons were of gigantic proportions, 
but their bones had well nigh crumbled into dust. With 
these were found well made spears and chisels of native 
copper, stone chisels, gouges and flint arrow heads, and a 
curious terracotta mask resembling the heads on the 
earthen vessels of the mound-builders." This correspomis, 
says Dr. Dawson, with the old Alleghan modes of interment, in 
the South west, where the skeletons are found in the same 
position, and often with an earthen vessel, bearing the repre- 
sentation of a human face at the head of each, for food or 
water, even as David discovered his enemy Saul asleep in 
the trench with the spear and cruise at his bolster.'-' On our 
own Fort Hill, before devoteil to its present uses, a number 
of skeletons were found similarly grouped in a circle, placed 
in death as warriors would lie with their feet to the watch 
lire — a mode of burial peculiar to the mound-builders. 

That the commanding earth-work which crowns Fort Hill,^ 
belongs to a period which antedates the occupation of this 
region by the Iroquois, is generally conceded. A similar 
ro.ound enclosure on an elevation, near where the rail-road 
crosses North Street, only still more marked, is remembered 
by the older inhabitants, as encircling some three or four 
acres. The whole has since been levelled by the plow and 
is under cultivation. It was the site of an ancient fortified 
town and abounds in interesting relics. Here are found 
the most ancient forms of the disc hammer,'' characteristic 

2 " Fossil Men. etc." p. 60. 

3 See Fig. 4 in the series of illustrations, in Mr. Wheeler's paper, "Inventors and In- 
ventions of Cayuga Co., N. Y.," which forms a part of this volume. 

* Id. Fig. 7 b. 



FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 17 

of the Stone Age, also the simplest type of the arrow head, 
small and triangular,' without the notches at the base, after 
the pattern which Nilsson and others give as used by the 
Flint folk of Earo})e ; fragments of pottery in profusion, 
ornamentud with various tracings and indentations ; the stone 
pipe of quite elaborate forms, and similar indications of a very 
ancient civilization. Only such things as are of imperishable 
material, survive to tell of the life and customs of the people, 
who had chosen for their abode a spot commanding one of 
the most extended and charming prospects in the vicinity of 
our fair city. No tradition gives any clue as to the date of its 
occupation. It was evidently not known to the French Jesuit 
Fathers, who have given us the earliest records of this 
region, (1656-1684), and who locate with special distinctness 
the Cayuga villages as they then existed. But though pre-his- 
toric in its origin and fate, it would not be difficult for the 
antiquarian to restore it in sketch to the eye, as it appeared 
when it was the centre of life and power. In the vicinity, 
stood some years since, as I am informed, a mound of earth, 
which when levelled was found to contain a large number 
of skeletons, many of which were pierced with arrow heads 
still fast in the bones, showing that these warriors fell in 
battle, doubtless in defence of the town, in the struggle 
between fierce and rival peoples for the mastery of this 
ground. 

It seems to have been the fate of all aboriginal popula- 
tions, in Asia and Europe, as well as on the Nortli American 
continent, at one time or another, to be thus dispossessed of 
the soil, and to fade away before some superior race. Wlien 
first known to the explorers of the country, the Indian tribes 
occupying the territory now covered by the State of New 
York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, together with a poi-tion of 

5 " Inventors aad Inventions, etc.," Fig. 5. The hand hanmier and the arrow heads 
thus illustrated were found on the ancient site referred to in the text. 



18 FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRKSS. 

Canada, were grouped into leagues or confederacies, both for 
defence and aggression, with little or no apparent advantage 
of the one over the other. Indeed, from some cause, there 
appears to have been such adjustment of limits and relations 
as civilized nations have found necessary to preserve the 
balance of power. The Iroquois tive nations better known 
from their geographical position and their prominence in the 
early history of the country, were at that time liemmed iu on 
all sides by such powerful neighbors as the Hurons, the 
Neuters and the Eries on the north and west, and on the 
south and east by the Susquehannas or Andastes, and the 
Mohicans. It was not until after settlements were made by 
the French in Canada, and the Dutch, followed by the 
Enghsh, in New York, that the Iroquois confederacy evinced 
that spirit of conquest which distinguishes them and made 
their name a terror from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. It 
would appear that the ambition which knew no bounds to 
aggression, and has won for them the title of the " Eomans 
of the west," was suddenly stimulated by the presence of the 
European, as it was afterwards materially helped by his 
counsels and superior arms, so that within a period of less 
than thirty years beginning with the destruction of the 
Hurons in 1649, they had swept from the territory I have 
indicated, these rival confederacies, or held them in subjec- 
tion as their conquerors. 

This proved an immense factor in the problem of the new 
civilization and paved the way for its solution. It simpli- 
fied, at the outset, the relations of the several colonies, 
French, Dutch and English, with the natives, and centered 
every important question of mutual interest, policy, or 
treaty, in the grand council chamber at Onondaga, the capi- 
tal of the Iroquois confederacy. It moreover gave, in the 
distribution of powers, to single cantons particular jurisdic- 
tion over conquered territor}^ Thus when Sir William Penn 



FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 19 

would extend the limits of liis colony bj the ])urcliase of a 
portion of the lands wrested by conquest from the Susque- 
hannas, he was refused by Orehaoue, the great Cayuga war 
chief, who subsequently made over that same land to the 
English, at Albany, by treaty, thus determining the boun- 
dary line between Pennsylvania and New York. And sixty 
or seventy years later, when the Moravian Brethren would 
establish a mission site on the bank of the Susquehanna, 
consent must first be obtained from one of the successors of 
Orehaoue, and scarcely less distinguished Cayuga chief, 
Togai)a()ae. Thus, also, Shikellimy, father of the celebrated 
Logan, though an Oneida, by adojition, but married to the 
daughter of a Cajaiga sachem, was made a ruler over a rem- 
nant of the conquered Shawnees, and other tribes at Sham- 
okin on the Susquehanna — an instance of the Iroquois policy 
of constituting a sort of vice-gerency over all subjugated 
tribes. 

For a hundred years the Five Nations played this conspic- 
uous part in events which were slowly and surely con- 
spiring toward one result ; and their final overthrow became 
one of those necessities of history for which there is no rem- 
edy. They sought, in their pride and bravery, to maintain 
their position and prestige in the strife between French and 
English for their alliance and so for the suprcmiicy ; and 
deluded themselves with the fiction that they were indepen- 
dent of either. But with all their craft, the eloquence of 
their orators, the diplomacy of their sachems and the j'lrowess 
of their warriors, it was as inevitable as destiny itself, that 
they in turn should come to the same fate wdiich they had 
meted to others. It was in the necessit}^ of events that their 
fortunes should be linked to one or the other of the two con- 
tending powders for the empire of the continent, and not less 
a necessity of their geographical position as w^ell. And no 
sooner had thev broken their earliest alliances, discarded the 



20 FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

French, and driven the missionary Fathers from their can- 
tons, than we find them nailing up, in their villages, the 
arras of the Duke of York as a token of their allegiance to 
the English. The war of the Revolution, nearly a century 
afterward, found them simple dependencies to the crown of 
Great Britian ; and they fell with the downfall of British 
sovereignty over the colonies. What the final result would 
have been, had the Iroquois five nations combined with the 
French, and against English colonization, we may hardly 
conjecture. It is easy, however, to see that such an alliance 
would have postponed, if it would not have prevented the 
establishment of liberty in the new world. But let us not 
forget to do justice to that feature of the French policy 
which would win the alliance of these fierce nations by the 
arts of persuasion and of peace. The Jesuit Father in the 
simplicity of his faith and with the heroism of his order, 
sought the conversion of the Indian, while not indifferent to 
the motive of winning his allegiance to the crown of France. 
It was the Catholic policy, then, as now, to convert the 
'• savage," not more for the sake of bringing him into the 
Church, than of incorporating him into the State. Even in 
the overturn of the Iroquois missions, numbers of their con- 
verts were persuaded by the Jesuit Fathers to accompany 
them back to Canada, as thirty-five years before in the dis- 
aster which befell their cherished Huron missions, when that 
nation was destroyed by the Iroquois, they succeeded in gath- 
ering a Christian remnant near Quebec; and the Indian vil- 
lages of Lorette and Caghnawaga, on the banks of the St. Law- 
rence, remain until this day. It is due to the same policy that 
there are at the present time more than 7,000 Iroquois in 
Canada alone ; and of this number nearly a thousand 
descendants, of the Mohawks, chiefly, who emigrated thither, 
two hundred years ago, under the guidance of the Jesuit 
missionaries. 



FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 21 

This simple fact may, perhaps, furnish a liint, at least, 
toward an answer to the perplexing question — what to do 
with the Indian ? It has been demonstrated that he can be 
both christianized and civilized, while it has been as clearly 
proven, that all measures on the part of our Government 
with its sj^stem of treaties, reservation agencies, preserving 
his tribal relations and discarding his citizenship, have 
ended in failure. He has been (h'iven from reservaticMi to 
reservation ; cajoled by treaties made to be broken ; cheated 
by government agents and exasperated to retaliate by the 
only methods the savage has learned for self-protection — 
those of war, with tlu; indiscriminate massacre of th(> inno- 
cent and the helpless. 

It was after the close of the Revolution, that the State of 
New York, by solemn treaty with the Cayugas, reserved to 
them a hundred square miles, on both sides of the lake that 
bears their name ; and guaranteed to them the right to fish 
in. its waters and hunt in its forests, and to their descendants 
forever. Ten years sufficed to strip that reservation of 
almost every trace of Indian occupation. As late as the 
Presidency of John Ciuinc}' Adams, that sagacious and lib- 
eral statesman, in view of the harassing perplexity of this 
Indian problem, proposed to Congress that all the Indians 
then left within the precincts of civilization, be removed to 
the region about Green Bay, where for a long time to come, 
they could be secure from the intrusion of the white man ; 
and this is the region now included within the eastern 
border of the State of Wisconsm and more than a thousand 
miles this side of the Rocky Mountains. Thus it is that 
our wisest statesmanshi[), in dealing with the Indian prol)lem, 
finds itself continually swamped by the wave of our advanc- 
ing civilization. We may not forecast its solution ; only this, 
that the past has proved costly and cruel, and the future is 
far from being hopeful. 



22 FOURTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

But, perhaps, I am touching too closely upon questions 
of the hour. Still, it is well to be reminded that there is this 
living connection of the present with the past ; and as our 
work is, to husband the experience of the past, we may 
thereby be doing most for the light and guidance of the 
future. 



FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS 
BY THE PRESIDENT. 



February 15T11, 1882. 



ADDRESS. 



It is an agreeable duty wliicli the position, heJd by me 
through 3^our favor, since tlie Society was formed, imposes 
u})on me at each annual meeting. It is, moreover, an honor 
which I gratefully appreciate to be thus associated with you 
in the work we have in trust, the dignity and charm of which 
grow with the passing years. No one of us, perhaps, is free 
to do all he would to promote the objects we here have in 
view. For the most part we are under the pressure of other 
duties, with less of leisure than inclination, to pursue the 
studies to which our Society invites. Each year, however, 
reveals the value of these labors, and furnishes fresh incentive 
to renewed efforts in the field we have undertaken to explore. 

It has been our aim thus far to secure accurate local his- 
tories of times and events within the limits of our own county, 
with sketches of individuals who took an active part in them ; 
and our archives bear witness to the diligence and success 
which have attended these efforts. There has been no lack, 
either of material, or of careful labor in its preparation for the 
uses of the Society. We have listened, at successive meet- 
ings, to these monographs with a zest and satisfaction hardly 
to be found elsewhere among our recreations. And yet the 
pleasure and profit thus derived, are incidental only to a much 
higher end. Next to acting well our own part in the events 
which are passing into history, is the duty to preserve and 
transmit the record of what has been done for human welfare, 
and would otherwise perish from the knowledge of men. 



26 FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

This is a work which is never completed. Though our 
Society should become venerable in years and increase its ac- 
quisitions many fold, it will continue to have the same things 
to do tliat it is now doing, witli perhaps a much wider field 
and, as we may hope, still larger facilities. It may well be 
our ambition, entrusted with its interests in its comparative 
infancy, to do what we can to make it worthy of perpetuation 
in its beneficent work, as the generations of men come and go. 

In my last annual address, I was led to speak of our home 
field as inviting arch geological research, suggested by remains 
corresponding to those attributed to pre-historic man, as found 
in different parts of Europe, and, indeed, in almost every por- 
tion of the habitable globe. I propose to pursue the subject 
this evening, with the aid of the more recent labors of those 
who have done most to inform us of the character and habits 
of the people who occupied this region, when first known to 
the European. 

The importance which has attached to such remains, is in 
the evidence they are supposed to furnish of the great anti- 
quity of man upon the earth ; and at the same time, as shed- 
ding light upon the related question of his development from 
some inferior animal type. Here for example, I hold in my 
hand such a relic, one of many similar things picked up on 
the ancient village site within the limits of the city corpora- 
tion, to which reference was made in my address last 
year. It is one of the rudest implements of the Stone Age, 
and may be regarded as among the most primitive put to the 
uses of man. It is a simple hand hammer, made by slightly 
hollowing a flat pebble on each side, so as to be firmly grasped 
by the thumb and two fingers. It was an indispensable uten- 
sil in every household, for driving wedges to split wood, 
breaking marrow bones, cracking nuts, bruising grains, and 
similar purposes, for which it appears to have had no substi- 
tute. This one bears marks of long and varied use, reducing 



FIF^TH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 27 

considerably its original size and sliape, its flat surfaces smooth 
by hand weai\ and looks as if it might have been an heirlDoni 
in some family, handed down for generations. 

Now the question is, do we get any nearer the solution of 
this ])roblem of the origin or antiquity of ifian, by the aid of 
this and similar implements scattered as they are in every 
part of the world ? I f the Stone Age covered the same period 
the world over ; or if the implements and utensils which 
survive a people, furnished any criterion of their capacity, or 
intelligence even, the question would be greatly simplified. 
But, for example, the Stone Age of Europe antedates written 
history. Hence it opens a fine field for the antiquary in which 
to indulge his imagination as to how long man has been upon 
this earth, while the evolutionist can weave what theory he 
chooses about the natural capacity of a creature who could 
only fabricate such rude articles, and be content with the 
narrow life which they indicate. On the other hand, there is 
a Stone Age peculiar to this continent in that it continued 
to a comparatively recent date, and subsequent to written 
history, so that we know much about its peoples, their char- 
acter, habits with their political and social institutions. 

Our North American Indians, up to the time of their dis- 
covery by European explorers, were using the same stone 
implements, not less primitive, not a whit more ingenious in 
their make, than those of pre-historic Europe, so frequently 
cited as the silent witnesses of the indefinite age of man upon 
this planet, and of his inferior origin. I have examined, care- 
fully, a large number of illustrations covering every shape 
and style of stone implement and weapon, characteristic of 
the pre-historic age, side by side with those in conmion use by 
our aboriginal Indians, and there i? no difference ; but so far 
as they indicate intelligence or capacity, they might have 
been made and used by one and the same people. Pre-his- 
toric man as measured by the remains disinterred from the 



28 FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

burial mounds and caves of the European continent, was at 
least not inferior to the red man of America, either in physi- 
cal characteristics or in the arts of life. Indeed the resem- 
blance in habits, institutions and religious belief, as thus 
indicated, can hardly be questioned. 

But what is perhaps even more significant in this connec- 
tion, the American Stone Age, as we know it, was preceded 
by or cotemporaneous with a period in which flourished a 
people who have left behind them evidences of art and forms 
of industry, which were unknown to the Indian three hun- 
dred years ago, when first seen by the European.' Are we 
therefore to infer that these mound-builders and metal 
workers were the intellectual superiors of the red man who 
was found in possession of the soil, though he did not perpet- 
uate their type of civilization ? Does the fact that the lords 
of the continent, when first known to the adventurous navi- 
gator, were living in bark houses, and content with the rudest 
form of stone implement, prove them inferior in capacity or 
achievement to the people who built their pueblos on raised 
embankments of earth, the remains of which liave given them 
their name ? There are, for example, several well known 

1 " From the absence of ajl traditionary knowledge of tlie mound-builders, among the 
tribes found east of the Mississippi," says Morgan, (Houses and House Life, pp. 219, 
220,) " an inference arises that the period of their occupation was ancient. Their with- 
drawal was probably gradual and completed before the advent of the ancestors of the 
present tribes, or simultaneous with their arrival. It seems more likely that their 
retirement from the country was voluntary than that they were expelled by an influx 
of wild tribes. If their expulsion had been the result of a protracted warfare, all remem- 
brance of so remarkable an event would scarcely have been lost among the tribes by 
whom they were displaced. * * * * it is not improbable that the attempt to trans- 
plant the New Mexican type of Village life into the valley of the Ohio, proved a failure 
and that after great efforts continued through centuries of time, it was finally aban- 
doned by their withdrawal first into the Gulf region through which they entered, and 
lastly from the country altogether." Dr. Abbott, (Primitive Industry, p. 350) asserts 
that " as yet there is not one jot or tittle of evidence that proves that the native races 
of the North Atlantic seaboard, were not ns old as the mound-builders. The latter seem 
the older simply because the traces of antiquity on the seaboard have been overlooked 
or strangely disregarded, because so uninviting when compared with the rich harvests of 
strange objects, that reward the explorers of the western mounds." 



F'lFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 29 

Indian sites within tiu^ limits of this ('(iniity, and assnining 
now that iill wo know ahout the ])('o])l(' wlio (»n(rc occupied 
thorn, is what may be gath,;rcd from the remains whicli have 
survived them, their stone hannners, axes, chisels, ])estles, 
gouges, their Hint s[)ear and arrow heads, or tlie fragments 
of })ottery, which suggest theii' household economy, and what 
would be the I'eady conclusion? Why, that they were the 
rudest of savages, if not the most inferior spechnens of 
humanity. 

But, fortunatel}^, it so happens that we know much about 
these old Cayugas, that we can never know of the prediistoric 
})eo})les who have left the same imperishable relics, so alike 
in form, and use, that they might have been fabricated by the 
same hands. We know that they developed many useful 
arts of which no remains are to be found; as of curing and 
tanning the skins of animals; of the manufacture of mocca- 
sins and wearing apparel ; of rope and net making from lila- 
ments of bark; of finger weaving with warp and woof of the 
same material into mats, sashes, burden straps and other 
useful fabrics ; of basket making with osier, cane and splints ; 
of canoe making from skins, birch bark, or by hollowing and 
shaping a single log ; of making tish spears and bone hooks, 
im})lenients for athletic games, musical instruments, such as 
the llute and the drum together with various personal orna- 
ments of shell, bone, and stone.''' We know also that they 
were cultivators of the soil ; had their harvest festivals, and 
stored for winter use the fruits of their husbandry. 

But more than this, we know that these ancient Cayugas 
formed an integral part of a powerful confederacy, with a 
government and institutions in structure and purpose not 
unlike our own Rc[)ublic, whicli came centuries later; cer- 
tainly more in accordance with it in form and principle, than 
any cotemporaneous European government. It was a marvel 

2 Lewi6 H. Morgan in North American Review, October, 1868. 



30 FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

of })olitical sagacity, as it appeared to the intelligent and 
devoted missionaries who first sought to win the Iro(|uois to 
the crown of France and the Christian faith. The students 
of political science in the Old World, were at a loss to account 
for the existence of a system evincing such wi.sdomin adjust- 
ing power to personal rights and combining law with liberty, 
among rude barbarians. 

Now with this knowledge, we are only to remember that 
they were a people of the Stone Age, to distrust the conclu- 
sion to which we are invited in speculations about the pre- 
historic races, that because men made tlieir connnon and more 
useful implements and their most effective weapons, of stone 
instead of iron ; and their ornaments of shell and bone rather 
than of copper or gold, therefore they were low in intellect 
and related, not distantly, to the chimpanzee or the gorilla. 

It is due largely to the careful labcjrs of a native of this 
county, the late Lewis H. Morgan, that we have such full 
knowledge of our immediate predecessors in the central and 
western portion of the State. It was to the political and 
social system of the Iroquois, that this distinguished scholar 
devoted his earlier ethnological studies, and now almost 
simultaneous with his lamented death, his latest investiga- 
tions in this "great problem of Indian life" appear in a vol- 
ume recentl}^ issued by the Department of the Interior at 
Washington.^ We have also within the past year, from the 
pen of the eminent philologist, Mr. Horatio Hale, an authen- 
tic history of the origin of the Iroquois League, as the result 
of much patient research.^ It presents the founder of the 
confederation, Hiawatha, as no longer a divinity either Iro- 
quois oi- Algonquin, but in the garb of sober history and 
under the title of " A Law-giver of the Stone Age " Dr. 
Morgan has done much to disentangle American aboriginal 

3 U. S. Geographicul and Geological Survey, Houses and House Life of the American 
Aborigines; Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. IV, 1881. 

4 Hiawatha and the Iroquois Confederation. A study In Anthropology, 1881. 



FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 31 

history and ethnology from perversion, earieatui-e and lo- 
mance; but a more satisfactory sinpjlc study in this direetion, 
than this of Mr. Ilale, it would be difficult to find tunong the 
various contributions to this department of knowledge. 

It is from a confused Indian mythology, that the genius of 
Longfellow has woven the charming poem which sings of 
Hiawatha as of miraculous birth, sent of the Great Spirit 
among the red men to clear tlieir rivers, forests and fishing 
grounds, and teach them the arts of jieace. The Gitche 
Manitou, or Great Master of Life, has become weary with the 
(juarrels and bloodshed o( his poor children, and tells them 
that the)' should light each (jther no more ; that their strength 
is in union ; that henceforth he would have them at peace 
with one another, and promises to send them a great ])rophet 
who will guide them and teach them ; that they have only 
to listen to his counsels to grow and prosjier ; otherwise they 
would fade aw^ay and perish. If, then, they would receive 
their pi'ophet, they must cease from their bloody quarrels; 
wash the war paint from their faces; bury their war clubs ; 
smoke together the peace-pipe, and love as brothers. Enough 
to say, the promise is made good in the birth of the child of 
wonder, this son of the West Wind ; in his strange nurture; 
his marvelous deeds of wisdom and love, until his final fare- 
well to the people for whose good he had wrought and suf- 
fered, when, as he faded from their sight, his bark canoe 
seemed lifted high into a sea of splendor and then sank like 
the new moon into the purple distance. 

As in the Grecian mythology, gods were onlv magnified 
men, so this fabled divinity of the red man, was no other than 
a veritable Onondaga chief, " a grave Iroquois law-giver of 
the fifteenth centur\^," instead of an " Ojibway demigod," as 
he is made to figure in modern literature. Let us then for a 
while, this evening, follow the traces of veritable history, as 
given by Mr. Hale in his discriminating research over ground 
so long surrendered to fable and song. 



32 FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

The Iroquois were first discovered in 1608, arid it is claimed 
in tiieir traditions that their confederacy had existed from 
one huii(h-ed and tifty to two hundred 3^ears, when they fii'f^t 
saw Europeans, which would give the date of its formation 
about A. D. 1400-1450/ If the Iroquois were originally one 
people, as there is good reason to believe, they had been 
broken into five independent tribes contiguous to each (rther 
and substantially of one language. The Mohawks and Onei- 
das on the east, were involved in pei'petual broils with the 
Mohicans who held the banks of the Hudson River. The 
Cayugas and Senecas on the west, were in like antagonism 
with such warlike tribes as the Eries and Hurons, while the 
Onondagas, being the central nation, had their own policy, 
directed by a crafty, ambitious chief who sought to advance 
his own power, regardless of the other Iroquois tribes. His 
name was Atotarho, or as also written, Tododaho. He was 
regarded as a most dangerous antagonist by his immediate 
neighbors, as well as by his more distant enemies, and was 
sullenly opposed to anything like union with the other tribes. 

Hiawatha, himself a chief of high rank and of repute among 
the Onondagas for his wisdom and goodness, on the contrary, 
longed for union and peace, not only among the five nations 
thus grouped together, but for all others, that could be in- 
duced to come into such a league. He was now past middle 
life, a calm and thoughtful observer of events. Moved by 
the sad condition to which war and misrule had reduced his 
own, and the other tribes, he kept his own counsel, while 
meditating a scheme which would secure general peace and 
amity. 

The time at length came, when Hiawatha was ready for 
action. He sought first the adhesion of his own nation to 
the plan, before it should be proposed to the others. Exer- 
cising the right of one of his rank, he summoned the chiefs 

* Morgan's Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines, p. 26. 



FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 33 

and pc(jple in council. Tliey came together in large num- 
bers. But the presence of Atotarho, seated in grim silence, 
was enough to over-awe the assembly, for though he spoke 
not a word, it was apparent to all that he looked with dis- 
l)leasure n})()n the change. Hiawatha unsupported by a 
single voice, stood alone and the council dispersed. Nothing 
daunted, however, he called another assembly which lor the 
same reason as before, Itroke uj) without debate. He per- 
sisted for the third time ; but besides himself no one came ; 
and as the nari'ative relates, Hiawatha seated himself on the 
ground in sorrow ; enveloped his head in his mantle of skins 
and remained a long time wrapped in grief and thought. At 
length, he arose and left the town ; and as the councils of his 
own nation were closed against him, he betook his way toward 
the Mohawks. It is related that when but a short distance 
from the town, he passed Atotarho, his crafty antagonist 
seated near a well known spring, in his usual stern and silent 
mood. No word passed between them, as Hiawatha [)liing('d 
into the forest. Among other incidents of his solitaiy jour- 
ney, it is told, that in passing a certain lake, he gathered a 
number of white shells Avith which its shores were sprinkled, 
and arranged them in wampum strings upon his breast, as 
the token that he was the messenger of peace. It was early 
one morning that he arrived at a Mohawk town, the residence 
of a noted chief, Dekanawidah ; and seating himself upon a 
fallen trunk, near a spring, just as the day was dawning, he 
awaited the coming of the first to draw water. Presentl}^, 
one of the six brothers of Dekanawidah, who, with their 
families, lived with him in the same house, came with his 
vessel of elm bark, toward the spring. Hiawatha sat silent 
and motionless. Something in his aspect awed the warrior, 
who feared to address him. He returned to the house, saying 
to Dekanawidah, " A man, or a figure like a man, is seated 
by the spring, having his breast covered with white shells." 



34 FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

" It is a guest,'' replied the ehief, " Go bring him in ; we will 
make him weleome."'' 

Hiawatha found in the Mohawk chieftain, at once, a kin- 
dred spirit and a wise counselor. Togetlier thej entered upon 
the task of shaping and perfecting tlie proposed league, and 
secui-ing for it the popular favor. The idea, as we have said, 
was of peace and union among the several tribes whose rela- 
tive position and mutual interest pointed in that direction, 
while the confederation, once formed, was intended to be suffi- 
ciently elastic to embrace any and all other tribes who sought 
its benefits and com])lied with its terms. Indeed, the scheme 
in its inception, was a vevy broad and liberal one, and could 
it have been carried out, according to the idea of its pro- 
jector, it would have been to the Indian nations of the North 
American continent, what our Federal Union is to the states 
that compose it. That it did not reach these colossal pro- 
pojtions, will not diminish our respect for this " law-giver of 
the Stone Age," who had the heart to desire, and the mind 
to conceive the beneficient design. 

After much deliberation, the approbation of the Mohawks 
was obtained, and ambassadors were despt'tched to the Onei- 
das, the adjacent tribe, to secure their co-operation. The 
embassy met with a friendly reception, l)ut the gravity of the 
matter required consideration, and it was not until the expi- 
ration of a year, that the consent of the Oneidas was given. 

With the prestige thus afforded by the favorable action of 
the Mohawks and Oneidas, the attempt was renewed to win 
the Onondagas to the scheme, and the deputation for the 

B Among the Iroquois, hospitality was an established usage. If a man entered, an 
Indian house, at whatever hour of the day, in any of their villages, whether a villager, 
a tribesman or a stranger, it was the dut}' of the women therein to set food before him. 
An omission to do this, would have been a discourtesy amounting to an affront. As a 
custom it was upheld by a vigorous public sentiment. Mr. Morgan connects this univer- 
sal exercise of hospitality with the ownership of land in common, the distribution of 
their products to households, consisting of a number of families, or the practice of com- 
munism in living in the household.— Houses and House Life, etc., p. 61. 



FTFTIl ANNUAL ADDRESS. 35 

purpose,consistc(l of tlie three chiefs, Iliawatlia, Dekanawidah, 
with tlie Oneida, Odatslielite. But with tliis reiiifoiveinent 
even, the proposal was fated to another failure. Atotarho 
kept the same mind and eoldly refused to entertain the pro- 
ject. The deputation, however, were not to be turned from 
their purpose. Next to the Onondagas toward the west, lay 
tlie Cayugas ; and to their capital these messengers of peace 
made their way through the unbroken forest, conscious of a 
high errand and still hopeful of success. The Cayugas needed 
little persuasion to induce them to ratify the compact. 

This done, Akahenyonk, their chief, Joined with the other 
deputies in one more effort to secure terms with the Onon- 
dagas and their haughty chief. Resort was had to the tactics 
of a wise diplomacy, which takes into account the diflticulties ' 
of the case, secures what it can at once, and waits upon time 
to bring about what, for the moment, it may seem to surren- 
der. Thus it was proposed to concede that the Onondagas 
should be the leading nation of the confederacy, as geograph- 
ically they occujiied the central position ; that their chief 
town should be the federal capital where the general councils 
should be held, and in which they should have fourteen 
sachems, while no other nation should have more than ten ; 
that the right to summon a federal council should rest alone 
in Atatarho as the leading chief, and no act should be valid 
to which he might object. These concessions to the pride 
of the Onondagas and the haughty obstinacy of tlieir chief, 
met the case: and in due time they also ratified in solemn 
treaty the league, which now embraced four of the Iroquois 
nations. It remained to secure the adhesion of the Sonecas, 
the most populous of them all. A certain distinction was 
accorded to them in the recognition of their two principal 
chiefs, as military comiuanders, with the title of Door Keepers 
of the Long House, an ai)pellation by which the confederacy 
was to be known; and they were [)rompt to follow the exam- 
ple of the othei- tribes. 



36 FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

The union thus formed and the principles on which it was 
founded thus thoroughly understood, the next step was to 
construct and put in operation the actual government by the 
ap])ointment of its first council on the basis of representation 
already determined. This was done at a convention com- 
posed, by common consent, of the leaders in the movement 
already mentioned, including the Seneca chiefs, six in all, 
which met near the Onondaga lake, with Hiawatha as their 
princi})al adviser, and attended by a large concourse of the 
people from vafious parts of the new confederacy. Fifty 
sachems were selected for the federal council, distributed as 
follows : nine each from the Mohawks and Oneidas ; four- 
teen from the Onondagas ; ten from the Cayugas, and eight 
from the Senecas. The I'ights of the several cantons com- 
posing the league, were carefully guarded by providing that 
unanimity must be reached in ever}^ decision ; that is, the 
voice of each tribe or nation as determined by the majority 
of its I'epresentatives, in separate deliberation, after the gen- 
eral discussion, must be given in favor of the measure to 
make it binding. Thus each particular nation had an equal 
standing in the federal council, without regard to the number 
of its representatives ; and to each was accoi'ded a veto power 
against the action of all the others, thus neutralizing the con- 
cession made to the Onondagas in giving them the larger 
number of sachems in the council and their chief a veto upon 
its acts, as substantially the same right was accorded to all.' 

7 Recognizing unanimity as a necessary principle, the founders of the confederacy 
divided tlie sachems of each tribe into classes as a means for its attainment. No sachem 
was allowed to express an opinion in council, in the nature of a vote, until he had first 
agreed with the sachem or sachems of his class upon the opinion to be expressed, and had 
been appointed to act as speaker for the class. Thus, the eight Seneca sachems, being 
in four classes, could have but four opinions ; and the ten Cayuga sachems being in the 
same number of classes could have but four. In this manner the sachems in each class 
were first brought to unanimity among themselves. A cross-consultation was then held 
between the four sachems appointed to speak for the four classes ; and when they had 
agreed they designated one of their number to express their resulting opinion, which 
was the answer of that tribe. If the several opinions agreed, the decision of the coun- 
cil was m:ide. If not. the measure was defeated and the council was at an end.— Houses 
and House Life, etc., p. 37. 



FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 37 

This is the simple history of the origin of the Iro.]uois con- 
federation wliicli, for nicH'e than three centuries, held the Five 
Nations together in perfect amity and made them such a 
power on this continent. I have rehearsed the storj in the 
briefest form, as chiefly drawn from the elaborate paper of 
Mr. Hale, who has done such valuable service in disentang- 
ling this early portion of Iroquois history from the legends 
of their mythology, and given to their most cherished and 
venerated name its place in true history. Hiawatha, as a 
real personage, ranks with the heroes, sages and exemplars 
of the past, who have advanced human welfare. " His tender 
and lofty wisdom," says Mr. Hale, " his wide reaching benev- 
olence, and his fervent appeals to the better sentiments, 
enforced by the eloquence of which he was master, touched 
cords in the popular heart, which have continued until tliis 
day. Fragments of the speeches in which he addressed the 
council and the people of the league, are still remembered and 
repeated."'* " About the main events of his history and about 
his character and |)nr]ioses, there can be no reasonable doubt ; 
we have the wampum belts which he handled and whose sim- 
ple hieroglyphics preserve the memory of the public acts in 
which he took part. We have also in the Iroquois "Book 
of Kites" a still more clear and convincing testimony of the 
character both of this legislator and the people for whom his 
institutions were designed. This book, sometimes called the 
"Book of the condoling council," comprises the speeches, 
songs and other ceremonials which from the earliest period 
of the confederacy, have composed the proceedings of their 
councils when a deceased chief is lamented and his successor 
is installed in office. The fundamental laws of the League, 
a list of then" ancient towns and the names of the chiefs who 



8 Hiawatha and the Iroquois Confederation, p. 15. 



38 FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

constituted their first council, chanted in a kind of litany, 
are also comprised.''^ 

These men of the Stone Age, measured by their work and 
time, were the equals in intellectual endowment and prac- 
tical wisdom with any whose names are associated with the 
origin of nations. Their ideas of union and independence of 
law as the basis of liberty, antedate the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and Constitution of the United States, at least three 
centuries. These " Flint Folk " had maintained freedom with 
self-government in the heart of our empire state, for two hun- 
dred years before Hendrick Hudson sailed up the river which 
bears his name, or the Pilgrim Fathers set foot on Plymouth 
Rock. It was certainly not superiority of numbers that gave 
them the possession of the gateways of this continent from 
the Hudson to the Mississippi ; for at the height of their 
power, they could not command more than twenty-five hun- 
dred warriors, with a native population of less than twelve 
thousand. The simple fact that they maintained their union 
with free government, in its integrity for tlirice the period 
which covers our national life, may of itself serve to increase 
our respect for these barbarians, as we are wont to regard 
them, if not to abate somewhat the self esteem of our modern 
civilization, which would delude us with the notion that supe- 
rior culture and wider knowledge, necessarily imply superior 
capacity and a sturdier virtue. 

Another fact of special significance is that there were no 
indications of degeneracy among their leaders, or in the peo- 
ple themselves, from the formation of their confederacy to 
the time when tlie earliest white men came amons: them. 



9 Id. p. 19. There are at the present time in tlie United States and Canada more than 
13,000 bearing the Iroquois names and lineage ; and says Morgan (Houses and House 
Life, etc., p. 3^) : ' Although but a shadow of the old confederacy now remains, it is fully 
organized with its complement of sachems and aids, with the exception of the Mohawk 
tribe, which removed to Canada about 1775. Whenever vacancies occur, their places 
are filled and a general council is convened to install the new sachems and their aids. 
The present Iroquois are also perfectly familiar with the structure and principles of 
the ancient confederacy."' 



FIFTir ANNUAL ADDRESS. 39 

" No senator of Venice," says the Kranciscan Fatlier Ilennejiin, 
" ever assumed a graver countenance or spoke with more 
weight tlian these Iroquois sachems in their assemblies." 
And the Jesuit Father Lalitau, in similiar phrase, rci)resents 
the federal senate at Onondaga as " discussing affairs of state 
with as mucli coohicss and gravity, as the Spanisli Junta or 
the grand council of Venice." The successor of the haughty 
Atotarho, two hundred years after tin; establishment of the 
League, was the pi'incely and courteous Garacontie, the fast 
friend of the Frencli missiontiries, the advocate of ])eace, and 
scarcely less honored and beloved in the other cantons than by 
his own people, the Onondagas. He was, moreover, greatly 
esteemed by the Jesuit Fathers and the French authorities at 
Quebec, by whom he was entertained on occasions of state, 
with marks of higiiest respect, and whose ambassadors he 
alwa3rs received at the Iroquois capital, with becoming dignity 
and grace. His name signifies " sun that advances," and his 
character as a sachem anil sage, was not unworthy the appel- 
lation. 

Not unlike Garaccuitie in many of his best characteristics, 
and perlia}3S his superior in the arts of diplomacy and elo- 
quence, was his contemporary, Saonchiogwa, the chief of 
the Cayugas, whose speeches in general council and on impor- 
tant embassies, have been preserved in the French Relations'" 
as among the finest specimens of native oratory, wdiich have 
called forth such encomiums from our own statesmen and 
scholars. He was the friend and host of the learned and 
accomplished Jesuit, dcCarhiel, wMiose contidence and esteem 
he enjoyed, during the eighteen years' residence of that mis- 
sionarv among the Cayugas, and through wIkisc influence he 
was led to embrace the Chi-istian faitli, and subsequently 
baptized by the Lord Eishop at Quebec, in the presence of 
the Governor General and other French dignitaries both of 



10 Relation, 1656, Chap. VII ; lb. 1661, Chap. II. 



40 FIFIH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

chnrcli and state, on the conclusion of a most important 
negotiation with which he had been charged by his coun- 
trymen." 

Among examples of military genius, I might speak of 
Orehaoue, also a Cayuga, and recognized as the great war 
chief of tlie Five Nations, at the period of which we are 
speaking. His achievements, both of peace and war, would 
till a volume. He was, perhaps, the most prominent Indian 
figure of his time, unless we except the Huron Eat, that 
extraordinary man of whom Charlevoix says, " No Indian 
had ever possessed greater merit, a finer mind, more valor, 
prudence, or discernment in understanding those with whom 
he had to deal." Returning from France (where he had been 
sent a prisoner through treachery) in the same vessel with 
Count Frontenac, on his second appointment as governor- 
general of Canada, Orehaoue became strongly attached to 
the Count, who had a great admiration for his genius, and 
always treated him with high consideration. Indeed, he 
became identified with the French cause, as against the Eng- 
lish who had in many ways sought his favor, and became 
the war leader of the Indian allies to the crown of France. 
He died of a brief sickness, greatly lamented ; and as a token 
of his fidelity and eminent service, was buried at Quebec with 
both military and ecclesiastical honors. '" 

I could speak of others, if less prominent, scarcely less 
gifted, among the Iroquois leaders in that critical period when 
the resoui'ces of both France and England were taxed to their 
utmost to win the Five Nations into alliance with one or the 
other of these rival powers. But it must suffice to say that 
all our knowledge of this people of the Stone Age, and their 
chosen leaders, as indicating their capacity for government 
and national achievement, only demonstrates how^unsafe it 

11 lb. 1671, Chap. II. 

12 See Col. Hist. N. Y., IX, 464, 534, 681. Also Shea's Charlevoix, IV, 151, 20-3, 212,246. 



FIFTH ANNUAL ADDRESS. 41 

is, to judge of the natural capacity of a race of men from the 
standpoint of archseology, apart frou) the hght of history. 

A simihir review of the domestic and social life of the 
Iroquois nations, for whicti there is now abundant material, 
is equally in their favor. It would present them as a kindly 
affectionate people, full of sympathy for their friends in dis- 
tress, considerate to their women, tender to their children, 
hospitable to strangers, persistently faithful to the relation- 
ship of kindred, anxious for peace, and imbued with a profound 
reverence for their national heroes and benefactors. Indeed, 
the more we know of them, through the careful studies of 
such writers as I have already indicated, the less ground 
is there for the common prejudice that they are only treach- 
erous and cruel, a race of rude and ferocious warriors skilled 
in the arts of torture, rapine and bloodshed. "The ferocity, 
craft and cruelty (says Mr. Hale) which have been deemed 
their leading traits ha\'e been merely tbe natural accompani- 
ments of their wars of self {^reservation and no more indicate 
their genuine character, than the paint and plume and toma- 
hawk of the warrior, displayed tht- customary guise in which 
he appeared among his own people." We as a nation, would 
resent as narrow and harsh, any judgment which might be 
formed of our national character, most of all of our domestic 
and social life, from the horrors which might be gathered 
from our late civil war, or indeed from that which secured 
rur independence, instead of being measured by the purpose 
to be free, and the sacrifices then freely made to preserve 
union and liberty. And fortunate will it be for the American 
people, if after two more centuries of national life, with all 
their accessories of power and dominion, the institutions we 
now cherish shall remain unimpaired ; and the sentiment of 
universal brotherhood and peace which for three hundred 
years, directed the polity and conserved the national league 
of this people of the Stone Age, shall still abide the strength 
and glory of the Republic. 



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